【饥饿游戏】11

Chapter 3
The moment the anthem 1 ends, we are taken into custody 2. I
don’t mean we’re handcuffed or anything, but a group of
Peacekeepers marches us through the front door of the Justice
Building. Maybe tributes 3 have tried to escape in the past. I’ve
never seen that happen though.
Once inside, I’m conducted to a room and left alone. It’s the
richest place I’ve ever been in, with thick, deep carpets and a
velvet 4 couch 5 and chairs. I know velvet because my mother has
a dress with a collar made of the stuff. When I sit on the couch,
I can’t help running my fingers over the fabric 6 repeatedly. It
helps to calm me as I try to prepare for the next hour. The
time allotted 7 for the tributes to say goodbye to their loved
ones. I cannot afford to get upset, to leave this room with 
puffy eyes and a red nose. Crying is not an option. There will 
be more cameras at the train station.
My sister and my mother come first. I reach out to Prim 8
and she climbs on my lap, her arms around my neck, head
on my shoulder, just like she did when she was a toddler.
My mother sits beside me and wraps her arms around us.
For a few minutes, we say nothing. Then I start telling them
all the things they must remember to do, now that I will not be
there to do them for them.
Prim is not to take any tesserae. They can get by, if
they’re careful, on selling Prim’s goat milk and cheese and the
small apothecary 9 business my mother now runs for the people
in the Seam 10. Gale 11 will get her the herbs she doesn’t grow 
herself, but she must be very careful to describe them because
he’s not as familiar with them as I am. He’ll also bring them
game — he and I made a pact 12 about this a year or so ago —
and will probably not ask for compensation 13, but they should
thank him with some kind of trade, like milk or medicine.
I don’t bother suggesting Prim learn to hunt. I tried to teach
her a couple of times and it was disastrous 14. The woods 
terrified her, and whenever I shot something, she’d get teary 
and talk about how we might be able to heal it if we got it 
home soon enough. But she makes out well with her goat, so 
I concentrate on that.
When I am done with instructions about fuel, and trading,
and staying in school, I turn to my mother and grip her arm,
hard. “Listen to me. Are you listening to me?” She nods,
alarmed by my intensity 15. She must know what’s coming. 
“You can’t leave again,” I say.
My mother’s eyes find the floor. “I know. I won’t. I couldn’t
help what—”
“Well, you have to help it this time. You can’t clock out and
leave Prim on her own. There’s no me now to keep you both
alive. It doesn’t matter what happens. Whatever you see on
the screen. You have to promise me you’ll fight through it!” 
My voice has risen to a shout. In it is all the anger, all the fear 
I felt at her abandonment.
She pulls her arm from my grasp, moved to anger herself
now. “I was ill. I could have treated myself if I’d had the 
medicine I have now.”
That part about her being ill might be true. I’ve seen her
bring back people suffering from immobilizing sadness since.
Perhaps it is a sickness, but it’s one we can’t afford.
“Then take it. And take care of her!” I say.
“I’ll be all right, Katniss,” says Prim, clasping 16 my face in her
hands. “But you have to take care, too. You’re so fast and
brave. Maybe you can win.”
I can’t win. Prim must know that in her heart. The competition
will be far beyond my abilities. Kids from wealthier districts,
where winning is a huge honor, who’ve been trained
their whole lives for this. Boys who are two to three times my
size. Girls who know twenty different ways to kill you with a
knife. Oh, there’ll be people like me, too. People to weed out
before the real fun begins.
“Maybe,” I say, because I can hardly tell my mother to carry
on if I’ve already given up myself. Besides, it isn’t in my nature
to go down without a fight, even when things seem insurmountable.
“Then we’d be rich as Haymitch.”
“I don’t care if we’re rich. I just want you to come home.
You will try, won’t you? Really, really try?” asks Prim.
“Really, really try. I swear it,” I say. And I know, because of
Prim, I’ll have to. And then the Peacekeeper is at the door, 
signaling our time is up, and we’re all hugging one another so 
hard it hurts and all I’m saying is “I love you. I love you both.” 
And they’re saying it back and then the Peacekeeper orders 
them out and the door closes. I bury my head in one of the 
velvet pillows as if this can block the whole thing out.
Someone else enters the room, and when I look up, I’m 
surprised to see it’s the baker 17, Peeta Mellark’s father. I can’t 
believe he’s come to visit me. After all, I’ll be trying to kill 
his son soon. But we do know each other a bit, and he knows 
Prim even better. When she sells her goat cheeses at the Hob, 
she puts two of them aside for him and he gives her a generous
amount of bread in return. We always wait to trade with him
when his witch of a wife isn’t around because he’s so much
nicer. I feel certain he would never have hit his son the way
she did over the burned bread. But why has he come to see
me?